As reported by The Guardian, John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s mission directorate, referred to the planet as “The closest twin to Earth, or the Earth 2.0 that we’ve found so far in the dataset”.
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“Today the Earth is a little less lonely”, Kepler data analysis lead scientist Jon Jenkins said. Kepler 452b, about 1,400 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, is the first to be confirmed as a planet of these candidates. It’s close to the same size as Earth and revolves around a star that’s roughly the same surface temperature as our Sunday. The planet sits snugly within the “Goldilocks” habitable zone where the temperature is temperate and suitable for the water to remain in liquid form.
The Kepler team to date has doubled the number of exoplanet candidates. The new survey satellite will continue searching nearby solar systems for Earth-like exoplanets with new technology.
About a dozen habitable zone planets in the Earth-size ballpark have been discovered so far – that is, 10 to 15 planets between one-half and twice the diameter of Earth, depending on how the habitable zone is defined and allowing for uncertainties about some of the planetary sizes.
“The water vapor might be lost from the planet forever”.
It also, like Earth, has a good chance of being rocky.
“That’s considerable time and opportunity for life to arise somewhere on its surface or in its oceans should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet”, he said.
“Humans explore the universe in many ways besides putting our feet on the planet”, Young said.
Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diametre than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet.
With the discovery of Kepler-452b, the Kepler telescope has now discovered 1,030 confirmed planets. The planet is 5 % farther from its mother or father star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sunday.
The planet has been named as Kepler 452b.
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According to Wenz, the data sets used to confirm Kepler 452b “come from more refined techniques that can detect planets around even extremely faint stars”. In 20 years of searching, the conditions on Kepler 452b are closer to those found on Earth than any other known planet. Sophisticated computer programs and follow-up observations with a ground-based telescopes then determine if some of the light dips were caused by planets passing in front of their parent stars, relative to Kepler’s line of sight. While astronomers have not ruled out life around either smaller, dimmer or larger and brighter stars, Jenkins notes that it makes sense to start with what we know – which is that life is possible around a G-class star. The star is 6 billion years old, whereas, the Sun is 4.6 billion years old.
